


A Rough One to Read

by ashenpages



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reading, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashenpages/pseuds/ashenpages
Summary: Ignis hasn't called. Gladio gets worried and buys him a book as an excuse to go and check on him. He only realizes what a collaborative type gift that is now that Ignis is blind when he's standing in Ignis's doorway.





	A Rough One to Read

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of a bunch of Gladnis fics that are should stand on their own as short stories. If you have trouble following the timeline, let me know and I'll do something about it!

Ignis hadn’t called.

That sort of thing didn’t usually worry Gladio. Not usually. He wouldn’t call this worried, anyway. It made sense to feel whatever this was since Ignis couldn’t see anymore. Sure, he was getting around town just fine, and he was definitely reclaiming his talent for cooking and kicking demon ass, but if there was one thing that guy liked to do it was talk—so not hearing from him was totally reason for concern. Yeah. Concern. That was the word for this feeling.

Gladio tried texting him. Even with the demons prowling the now permanent darkness shrouding the world of Eos, the badass women that ran Lestallum’s city and nationwide power plants still put out enough juice to keep phones charged, for the people who still had ‘em. It took him a day to realize his mistake. It sucked enough Iggy couldn’t read his recipes or books anymore, but why hadn’t someone gotten on creating some sort of responsive screen that morphed into something Ignis could touch and read?!

Oh right, ‘cause the world was ending, that was why. Gladio huffed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He pulled up his contacts and selected Ignis’s name. He held the phone to his ear, waiting as it rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Gladio wanted to strangle that stupid ringing sound the fourth time. Each time it rang, his “concern” got more intense. Ignis’s voicemail picked up after the fifth ring.

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Ignis Scientia. I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but please—”

Gladio didn’t wait to leave a message.

* * *

“Just a moment!” Ignis sounded both exasperated and alarmed behind the door of his apartment. Fair response to someone pounding on your door as loudly as Gladio just had. Gladio was just glad he was responding at all. Although, this meant Gladio would actually have to go through with the excuse he’d invented to come and see Ignis in the first place.

Ignis opened the door. He turned his head about, almost like he was looking around. Gladio noticed the way he cocked his ears for input instead of his eyes, though. “What’s the emergency?” Ignis asked.

“No emergency,” Gladio responded.

Ignis’s eyebrows furrowed. “Gladio?” He sounded completely taken off guard.

“Hey,” Gladio said by way of answer.

Ignis crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Brought you a book.” Gladio held the book out in front of Ignis. Ignis didn’t move. “It’s in front of you,” Gladio said.

“I’m aware.” Ignis’s tone was dry.

Gladio cleared his throat. This wasn’t going as smoothly as he had hoped. “Thought I could read it to you.”

Ignis quirked an eyebrow. Even with the scars and the way he hid his eyes behind that tinted visor, Ignis still managed to speak volumes with his eyebrows. The tight bind of Ignis’s crossed arms loosened as he shifted. “I thought you said you didn’t like reading to me,” he murmured, some of the steel gone from his voice.

Gladio didn’t know what to say. “I don’t…” he paused. He needed to get this right. “I hate that you can’t—” Gladio groaned as Ignis pursed his lips. “I don’t know how to phrase this without sounding like an asshole.”

“Try,” Ignis said. He drew the word out, obviously unimpressed with Gladio’s butchering of the English language so far.

He was trying! Fine, whatever, just time to spit it out the way it was, same way he always did. “It’s fucking stupid you can’t read by yourself when you want to.”

Gladio peeked at Ignis’s mouth. His lips remained narrowed, but didn’t purse further. Gladio sighed. “Look,” he said. “Will you just let me read to you?”

Ignis seemed to consider for a moment. Then he stepped back out of the doorway. “Tell me about this book,” he said, leading the way into his small living room. Gladio stumbled a little on his way in. Ignis cocked his head, as if confused by the sound. “Ah,” he said, reaching for the light switch of the living room. Gladio had only seen the room a few times on his way through the entryway to the kitchen. Like most things that belonged to Ignis, it was tidy. A sofa sat in the middle of the room, an inviting rug spread underneath it. Ignis didn’t have a television—what use would he have for it now?—but a radio sat on the table to the side of the couch. A chair stood next to the window. In another time, it might have served as a sunny reading nook—not that Ignis had any use for windows, light, or reading anymore. “Forgive the oversight, I have little use for the lighting these days.”

Gladio smirked, trying to counter the way the living room made him feel with a joke. “Oversight, huh?”

Ignis sighed. “Yes, very funny. Are you going to give me the title of the book you nearly broke my door down to read to me?”

“Right.” Gladio fumbled the book in his big hands, trying to catch the title again. He hadn’t really looked at it. Iggy liked those stuffy old books where people did things like drink tea and go to the countryside and it was supposed to mean something deep and important. The bookseller he’d talked to had spent a bit looking baffled and confused when Gladio had tried to describe this to her, but eventually had handed him a book that she said she was fairly certain was what he was looking for. “Ego and Empathy by Jayne Austeen,” Gladio announced.

Ignis whipped around and snatched the book from Gladio’s hands. “You found a copy of Ego and Empathy?!” Ignis ran his fingers over the cover of the book, a look of pleased disbelief on his face. “Do you have any idea how difficult these are to find?”

“Uh…” Well at least he’d managed to get something right. Ignis’s fingers dipped into the pressed gold letters of the cover. Ignis bit his lip, running his finger slowly from letter to letter. Gladio swallowed. It was hard to see him like this. Ignis was amazing. Everything about him had always been more than perfect. His cooking, his standards, you name it. And now, with everything turning to shit, he wasn’t. Gladio swallowed again and looked away. No, that wasn’t true. He was still perfect. Just different. Gladio had never been good with change. It always felt like losing something.

Gladio reached out and laid his hand over Ignis’s fingers. “Here, let me,” he said.

“Right, of course…” Ignis surrendered the book into Gladio’s hand. “I’ll just get comfortable then?”

“Yeah,” Gladio said. “Wherever you want.”

Ignis nodded and sat down on the sofa. Gladio didn’t move. Ignis looked like a bird, perched on the edge of a building, ready to take off at any moment. “You sure you’re comfortable?” Gladio asked.

The tilt of Ignis’s head changed, as if he had blinked in surprise. “Do I not look comfortable?”

Gladio laughed. “Not even a little bit, buddy.”

Ignis scoffed and then lay down on the sofa, his head cradled by a pillow on one arm of the sofa, his feet neatly crossed over the other. “Better?” he asked.

“Good enough,” Gladio said. He lifted Ignis’s feet by his bottom ankle and plopped himself onto the couch. He watched Ignis’s face as he lowered Ignis’s feet back into place, searching for signs that what he was doing was still okay. A small smile took to Ignis’s lips. Gladio felt some tension slip out of his shoulders. Feeling a little more like his usual self, he opened the book to the first page. “Alright, chapter one…”

“There isn’t a foreword?”

Gladio stopped. “You don’t want to get right into the plot?”

Ignis tisked. “Gladio, Jayne Austeen’s texts have been around for centuries. The amount of critical acclaim and debate is—”

“I’ll read it, just please shut up.”

Ignis snorted, his head darting to the side as he politely tried to hide his mirth. Gladio felt his mouth mirror the smile of Ignis’s. It had been a while since he’d smiled so easily. Stars above, it felt good to see Ignis again.

“Alright, the completely ridiculous and unnecessary foreword,” Gladio said. He started to read over Ignis’s renewed laughter.

Gladio had no trouble with the foreword, and Ignis seemed to find it engaging. Little “hm”s of interest and telling eye-brow expressions kept Gladio invested in reading the next paragraph for Iggy. Gladio tripped over some of the old English in the second chapter. It didn’t take long for Gladio to get fed up with the old English dialogue of the characters after that. “And then Eliza said ‘fuck this shit, I’m gonna run off with Danielle, and we’ll have magnificent lesbian garden parties without you and your outdated breeding customs,’” Gladio said.

“Gladio,” Ignis warned.

“What, it’s right there on the page, Iggy.” Gladio laughed and turned the book towards Ignis. “You can see it for yourself, black and…”

His voice trailed off as the pain hit him. The smile slid off his face as if it had never been there. He closed the book and tossed it to the coffee table. He let his hands fall onto Ignis’s legs. He rubbed his thumb over Ignis’s calf, trying to give his hands something to do.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he whispered.

Ignis made a small, resigned noise. He shifted and removed his glasses, laying them on the table. He blinked and touched a hand delicately to the scars around his eyes. It was the same posture he’d always used to push up his glasses back when he could see. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

“You’ve never been a burden.”

“You said you didn’t like reading for me.”

“I hate that I have to. I hate that you can’t.”

“That sounds as if you don’t enjoy it.”

“No.” Gladio gripped the fabric covering Ignis’s calf more tightly. “No. This is the best I’ve felt all week.” A pause. “I missed you.”

Ignis took off his gloves and reached out to touch Gladio’s face. His fingers traced Gladio’s features slowly. “I missed you too,” Ignis said.

Gladio’s breath hitched. Dammit, he wasn’t going to cry. He caught Ignis’s hand and crushed a kiss into his palm.

Ignis ran the fingers of his other hand through Gladio’s hair. “Your hair’s getting long,” he commented.

“I wish you could still cut it for me.”

Ignis snorted again. “Well, I could, but I rather doubt you’d be happy with the result.”

Gladio chuckled despite the sadness clinging to his chest.

“Kiss my hand like that again, however, and I could probably swoon for you like Eliza does for Daphne.” Ignis laid a hand across his forehead and dramatically mimed swooning.

Gladio laughed for real this time. “Spoilers,” he complained, kissing the back of Ignis’s hand. “Do I have to sweet talk you with frilly words too?” He leaned over Ignis.

“Hm,” Ignis said, guiding Gladio’s face down to his. “I think your usual brand of misplaced but from the heart will do.”

“Thank the stars,” Gladio breathed as Ignis kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and want me to write something else you've been craving, consider commissioning me to write it for you! Send me an [ask on my tumblr if you want to keep it private](ashenpages.tumbr.com), or email me at fanficsbyash@gmail.com.
> 
> Seriously, I love writing this stuff for you all, so even if it's a tiny commission, hit me up. Writing fic that's specially designed to make you smile is my favorite thing to do, even if it's only a few hundred words long.


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